by Sarah Noffke
Sophia tensed but worked to hide it. “It seems like it might be affecting you more than you’re willing to admit.”
He held the sword out, not at her, but it would take minimal effort for him to switch directions and slice her in half. It was risky business having this conversation with an out-of-control Hiker Wallace, and yet, Sophia had somehow, out of everyone, been nominated for this task. She would have rather signed up to teach Evan how to use recording software, a thing he’d been begging for her to do after listening to electronic music and learning about disc jockeying.
He dropped the sword to his side and spun to face her. “You defied me.”
It took everything she had not to roll her eyes at him. “You overstepped your bounds. You can assign me cases. You can tell me how to conduct myself as a dragonrider. However…” She dared to take a step forward, keeping her chin up and her face deadly serious. “You don’t control me as a woman. If I want to be with Wilder, then that’s what I’ll do.”
“I told you not to,” he said through gritted teeth.
She shook her head. “That wasn’t your call to make. Maybe part of your problem controlling your powers is that you’re trying so hard to control things you have no business managing. Focus on you. Attend to the problems you have and then—”
“How dare you,” he interrupted, menace making his face red.
Sophia wanted to fire back with, “I dared.” Instead, she took a calming breath. “Emotions directly affect magical powers. I get things are complicated for you. I think resolving some of these issues would help you to balance things.”
What Sophia wasn’t saying was that Hiker needed good old fashioned counseling. She’d slowly hint around at that one when he wasn’t holding a sword. “For instance,” she continued. “You could attempt to smooth things over with Ainsley. She’s mad and—”
“I know she’s mad,” he cut her off. “But there is no fixing things with her. There wasn’t then and there isn’t now. She’s always been a fiery redhead who doesn’t listen to reason.”
“If what Saint Valentine said is correct, then Ainsley can’t be cured and recover her memories as long as she’s heartbroken,” Sophia reasoned. “You don’t have to mend things, but you can apologize.”
He shook his head. “It wouldn’t matter.”
“So that’s it?” Sophia argued. “You’ve just decided you can’t do anything to help the situation, and you’re not even going to try?”
He yanked the sword up to his chest, the weapon shaking slightly in his hand. “Mind your place.”
Sophia didn’t back down but instead continued to hold his angry glare.
After a moment, he sighed. “Even if her heart was mended, I don’t know the cure.”
“Well, what have you tried?” Sophia asked.
He threw the sword like a spear, making it land in a bale of hay. “I don’t know. I haven’t really.”
“You what?” Sophia couldn’t believe it. “You never looked for a cure for Ainsley?”
“The Gullington brought her back from near death,” Hiker explained quickly. “I realized it was keeping her alive. She had lost her memories and couldn’t leave the Barrier for long, and then the world shut down when mortals couldn’t see magic, making the Dragon Elite useless. There wasn’t really any way for me to look and then…well, time just got away from me.”
“Yeah, a few centuries,” Sophia stated. It was then she realized that maybe without knowing it, Hiker didn’t want to cure Ainsley back then. She had forgotten she once loved him or that he broke her heart. If she was cured, she would have left the Gullington, and he would never see her again. She would have returned to the elves and moved on with her life. Maybe because he couldn’t move on with his, he didn’t want her to.
This man was a real piece of work, Sophia thought. He didn’t want to fix the heart he’d broken or cure the woman who had risked her life to save his. She was about to be furious about the realization when something else occurred to her.
Hiker still loved Ainsley.
Chapter Four
Cruel summer. Cruel, cruel summer, what are you doing to us? Lunis asked with a sigh, shaking his head.
Sophia looked at her dragon, rolling her eyes. “It’s not all that bad.”
Steam issued from his nostrils when he growled, They are ruining everything.
The blue dragon was referring to the evil baby dragons who had recently hatched. They weren’t literally ruining everything, but they were definitely making a mess on the Expanse. Between the three of them, they’d found some of Quiet’s equipment and were tearing it into pieces, breaking the machinery until it was unusable.
Just wait until the little devils have fire, Lunis complained. I say we drop them in the middle of the North Sea before that happens.
Sophia shook her head. “We have to find a way to embrace this. Or find a solution that doesn’t involve murdering a rare species that’s near extinction.”
Okay, we don’t drown them, he offered. We put them on a deserted island.
“They will be able to fly soon,” Sophia argued.
You didn’t let me finish, Lunis said, glaring at her. The island is sinking…
“So they drown.”
Exactly, Lunis said triumphantly.
“You know, we don’t know they are evil,” she observed. “One could be evil and influencing the others. We can’t make judgments too early. They are young and will mature, showing their true personalities.”
In the meantime, Lunis said, watching as the three fearless dragons bounded toward a shed next to the Castle, probably full of more tools, we’ll just watch this place get run into the ground.
Sophia shook her head. “Quit being so melodramatic. It doesn’t suit you.”
I’ll tell you what doesn’t suit me. It’s that you haven’t bought the stuff on my wish list from Amazon yet, he complained.
Sophia laughed. “What are you going to do with a Tardis sleeping bag?”
He giggled, which was a strange thing for a dragon to do, but here they were. I’m going to sleep on it, obviously.
“It’s like a quarter of the size of you,” she stated.
Lunis’ eyes widened with offense. Are you calling me fat?
“Oh, for the love of the angels. Is this really happening?”
Hey, do you want to hear a knock-knock joke? he asked, his tone shifting. Of course you do. Here you go. Knock knock.
Sophia lowered her chin, getting ready for the ridiculousness. “Who. Is. There?” She enunciated each word, as she often did when answering her dragon’s knock-knock jokes. Another thing most dragons—scratch that—no other dragons did. Sophia swept her eyes over the Expanse full of eggs. This new generation would be different, she suspected, but none of them would be quite like Lunis.
Doctor, he answered.
Sophia smiled. “Doctor Who?”
Exterminate. Exterminate. Exterminate. Lunis erupted with laughter, rolling over on his back and kicking his legs like a dog.
“Yes, that was about as bad as I would have expected,” Sophia mused.
Best. Joke. Ever, he said, continuing to roll around.
“When you’re done,” Sophia began. “I’d like to discuss real matters that affect the world.”
Lunis’ laughter halted abruptly as he rolled to his feet. He gave her an annoyed expression. Doctor Who affects the world. Did you know that because of him, the—
“It’s a fictional show,” Sophia interrupted.
What did Plato tell us about fiction? Much of it was nonfiction that was put in the wrong section, Lunis explained. I have every reason to believe this happened to Doctor Who. Out there is a lone Time Lord traveling the universe, looking for a companion. He gazed longingly at the sky. Then like he had a sudden idea, he whipped around to face Sophia. Do you think I could become the Doctor’s companion?
“First of all,” Sophia began, mock irritation heavy in her tone. “You are my dragon and we work for the Dragon El
ite, serving as world adjudicators.”
Boring, he said, blowing out his lips.
“We are literally the most powerful governing body on Earth,” she argued. “What we say goes on all mortal matters on this entire planet.”
Why you always trying to hold me down and fit me into a little cookie cutter? Lunis complained.
“Okay, and speaking of which,” Sophia continued, “you are a dragon. How are you going to fit inside the Tardis?”
Duh! he exclaimed, rolling his head, along with his eyes. It’s bigger on the inside.
Sophia shook her head. “I can’t even believe you went there. And you say my jokes are bad.”
The worst, he agreed.
“If you’re done, I wanted to discuss a real person who really does affect this world,” Sophia said.
Go on, but if this is about a cyborg you sympathize with, then I’m going back to the Nest to binge-watch Nailed It on Netflix, Lunis imparted.
“On second thought,” Sophia told him, “I don’t think I need a dragon anymore.”
You’re a dragonrider, he corrected.
“Yeah,” she sang. “But I do things differently as the first and only female rider. So maybe I don’t have a dragon, and you go off with the Doctor to ride around in a little blue box.”
He sighed. Okay, all kidding aside. I agree Trin Currante isn’t all bad. We have to figure out her story. What did you have in mind? Use government surveillance to determine where she could be? Metal detecting tech to scan the population to find all the cyborgs? See if we can find a smart man or woman with a sonic screwdriver who can find Trin Currante?
Sophia couldn’t help but laugh. “I thought I’d go ask my fairy godmother.”
He deflated. Yeah, I guess that could work. The boring approach.
“Because so many people have fairy godmothers, they can just pop over to and ask about their projects.”
I know a few, he argued.
“Who?” she challenged.
Look, can we continue this later? Lunis asked. I’ve got to go. Nailed It is about to come on, and I don’t want to miss it.
“It’s on Netflix, which means you can see it whenever you want,” she stated.
He stretched out his wings. I knew you’d understand. Thanks, Soph.
She shook her head at the strange dragon as he took off, launching into the air as he unfolded his wings and soared to the Nest in the distance.
Oh, Lunis said, looking over his shoulder at her from the air. Since you’re not busy with commitments like me—
You’re buzzing off to watch prerecorded cooking shows, she interrupted.
As I was saying, your Amazon wish list, he insisted. Get on it. I also need a potato peeler.
What for?
He turned his head back for the Nest. I can’t say. But get a couple. I’m bound to break the first one.
Chapter Five
Only the young were required for Mika Lenna’s newest project. Young magicians weren’t easy to find, but that hadn’t stopped the CEO of the Saverus Corporation.
There just weren’t as many magicians as the other magical races, but they were the only ones that worked for creating cyborgs. Elves, giants, and gnome’s DNA rejected magitech, whereas magicians embraced it. It made sense because they were the inventors. Where the other races preferred the natural elements, magicians had always been more cutting edge.
Identifying magicians wasn’t the issue. Mika had learned how to do that long ago. It was finding them. They didn’t usually congregate in mortal areas, and since he wasn’t of any of the magical races, he couldn’t portal onto Roya Lane, which they frequented.
Mika Lenna was a Dream Traveler, one of the rare race of mortals who could travel anywhere with his dreams. It offered him a few psychic abilities like telepathy and telekinesis but not the ability to portal through time and space.
To make things worse, since magicians had started going missing again, the House of Fourteen had issued a warning, telling its members to stay inside. The magical community hadn’t liked the self-imposed isolation but had agreed to do it to preserve their lives.
The first time Mika had worked to create his “projects,” the House of Fourteen had been under different leadership and hadn’t acted fast enough. Now with hundreds of magicians having gone mysteriously missing, they weren’t taking chances.
That was before one woman had nearly destroyed the Saverus Corporation.
Trin Currante.
She’d sabotaged many of Mika Lenna’s efforts, but he’d still gotten away. Just like when he had to rebuild his first company, Olento Research, he had weathered the storm and rebuilt yet again.
Mika Lenna flexed his fingers, feeling the incredible power he wielded flowing through his veins. He had used his own technology to genetically alter his DNA, blending it with a wolf. Now he was the stuff of legends. He didn’t shift into a werewolf on a full moon or howl, but he had superhuman speed, strength, and a lust for blood.
Mika Lenna wasn’t just a werewolf. He was the strongest one he had made. The organization, the Lucidites, thought they’d brought him down. They had no idea he’d come back to life and dug himself out of a grave.
The worst thing anyone ever did was doubt Mika Lenna.
He watched as the magician stumbled out of the bar, late at night and mostly drunk.
It didn’t matter. Even with their magic, magicians were no match for Mika Lenna. This one was dumb enough not to heed the House of Fourteen’s warning about staying inside, especially at night.
He watched the man cross the street not at an intersection and nearly get hit by a car as he stepped out in front of it. The magician shouted profanities, shaking his fist at the motorist.
Mika Lenna shook his head. It was always someone else’s fault. That was the problem with society. No one ever took responsibility. That was flawed thinking because when everything is someone else’s fault then it’s impossible to fix.
Mika Lenna’s problems were his own, and he sought solutions. Like when he created a few hundred cyborgs who rebelled, he figured out his mistake. It was the same error he made with the werewolf project.
The subjects still had emotions—fears and desires. Those created problems. They created rebels. Subjects such as that escape their confines and then return, freeing hundreds and destroying a multi-million dollar facility, looking for answers. Trin Currante may have been successful at ruining the Saverus building and freeing the prisoners, but she hadn’t gotten the one thing she desperately needed answered. A solution to how to fix her.
She wasn’t going to get it. Mika Lenna would see to it personally after all the trouble that rejected project had caused.
However, there had been a valuable lesson to it all. Before, the subjects had rebelled because they still had their emotions. There was one very easy way to fix everything.
Death.
Kill the subject and bring them back as a cyborg, and they were robots without any desires. Of course, the magitech that had to be innovated to bring a magician back to life defied all sorts of laws.
That’s what Mika Lenna was best at. Breaking the confines of science.
Necromancy wasn’t something he ever thought he’d dabble in, but having reliable products was the key objective.
“Why?” his head scientist Scott Jacobs had asked.
“Why not,” Mika replied firmly. He had created the genetically altered werewolves to become assassins. That had been the idea with the first batch of cyborgs. Now he wanted an army who would do his bidding. Actually, he thought they’d make the perfect soldiers to go after the werewolves and cyborgs who had escaped.
Hiding in the shadows of a dark alleyway, Mika watched the magician turn down the street, headed in the opposite direction. Many might be worried he’d get away, but that wasn’t a concern for Mika Lenna. This one wasn’t getting away.
He looked up at the sky, black save for a crescent moon, as the shift took over. To say it hurt to morph into his werewolf
form was an understatement. Mika Lenna had known many pains in his life full of suffering and experiments. However, when his bones broke and shifted to make his form larger, it was utter agony.
The claws slipping out of his fingers felt like knives slicing through his skin ten times over. The fangs that dropped out of the top of his mouth were the worst part. They felt like a double extraction done by the lousiest dentist in the world.
The change was always worth the pain, though. Mika Lenna glanced at the empty store window directly across from him and took in his appearance.
The stuff of legends. That’s what he had become.
His hulking form was reminiscent of a werewolf with the claws and fangs and rippling muscles, but he wasn’t some science fiction horror monster covered in hair, with wolf ears. Mika Lenna’s intention was to make classic werewolves, and he had succeeded.
His red eyes flashed, glowing brightly before he took off, darting out of his hiding spot.
The road was empty, save for the drunk magician singing loudly to himself at the end of the block. It took Mika Lenna less than a second to cross the distance.
The magician didn’t even have a chance to react before the werewolf arrived behind him, his massive hands on either side of the man’s head. With force no normal magician could resist, he yanked the man into him, his mouth opening wide.
Horror registered in the magician’s eyes just before fangs sunk into the side of his neck and tore through flesh and veins. The hunger was the best part of being a werewolf and satisfying that hunger never got old.
The magician screamed, but that didn’t stop Mika from feasting on the man’s body, unconcerned about the damage he was doing. He would fix him and make him anew.
Chapter Six
“You need to calm down,” Mama Jamba warned, her eyes narrowed in Hiker’s direction.
The temperature seemed to rise ten degrees when Sophia stepped over the threshold into his office.
“That’s what this one said in so many words.” Hiker pointed an accusatory finger at Sophia, making her pause, an uncertain expression on her face.
